Suit Alleges Antonovich Tried to Sway Judge : Litigation: The supervisor, saying he was trying to help a constituent, calls the suit ‘frivolous.’ The judge took himself off the case after the contact.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has been accused in a lawsuit of attempting to influence a judge on behalf of a campaign donor who had an interest in a case before the judge.

Antonovich has denied any impropriety, saying he called Superior Court Judge Eric Younger, an old friend, simply to offer himself as a character reference for Kirkor Suri, whose jewelry store partnership was being sued by a business associate.

“What I did in the call to Eric was to ask him, before I stated what I was going to say, if there was a conflict,” Antonovich said in a deposition in February, 1989. “Not being a lawyer, I said if there was a conflict, please stop me. If not, I would like to state that I know Mr. Suri, and the fact that he was a person who came here with nothing . . . and was able to become a success.”

Younger disqualified himself from the case last year after privately informing attorneys of the phone call and after the plaintiff’s attorney objected to him continuing with the case. The suit was reassigned to another judge, and is pending.

The case is a breach of contract suit filed in March, 1988, against a limited partnership that owns the Western Jewelry Mart in downtown Los Angeles. Although he is not named as a defendant, Suri said he is one of the partners in the mart.

The businessman suing the partnership filed a separate suit last October against Antonovich, accusing the supervisor of attempting to influence the judge “in order to secure future contributions and to repay Western Jewelry Mart for past contributions.”

The jewelry mart and owners have contributed about $19,000 to Antonovich in the last five years, according to campaign reports. The mart contributed $3,000 in December, 1988--less than a month after Antonovich’s call to the judge.

“Antonovich knew that the law required judges to be impartial and be influenced only by evidence duly admitted in court,” the suit said.

The suit, contending that Antonovich was acting within the scope of his official duties, also names the county as a defendant.

Damages are sought, but no dollar amount is specified. The plaintiff, Avedis Kasparian, contends that Antonovich’s actions caused a delay in the trial on the jewelry mart suit and may have cost the plaintiff a $3-million settlement. He said that before Antonovich’s call to the judge, the suit was close to settlement--a claim disputed by the Western Jewelry Mart’s attorney.

Antonovich on Tuesday called the suit against him “frivolous.”

Principal Deputy County Counsel Louis Aguilar, who is defending Antonovich, said the supervisor’s conversation with the judge was “totally innocuous . . . lasting a few seconds.”

“Mr. Antonovich is not a lawyer,” Aguilar added. “He was acting in what he thought was good faith on behalf of a constituent.”

Younger, citing the pending lawsuits, declined comment.

In a deposition, Antonovich said he called Younger after attending a November, 1988, luncheon at the Biltmore Hotel with Suri and three of his partners in the downtown Western Jewelry Mart--Edvard and Jak Sukyas and Hackick Madilian.

The partners have been involved in a bitter court fight with Kasparian over the leasing of space in the jewelry mart.

Western Jewelry Mart, Suri and his companies have contributed $17,885 to Antonovich since 1985, campaign reports show. Jak Sukyas contributed $1,000 to Antonovich last year.

Suri, who Antonovich said is active in the Armenian community, declined comment. He referred questions to lawyer Robert Mayman, who said, “I think that Antonovich did this with an innocent intent, with absolutely no intention whatsoever of influencing Judge Younger and anyone else, but more so to gather information about his constituents.”

Attorneys for Kasparian declined to discuss specifics in the case.

Antonovich in his deposition said he could not recall whether any of the men asked him to call Younger or whether he did so on his own. But after the 1988 luncheon, Antonovich said, he called Younger to attest to Suri’s “good character, and that was all.”

“Many times, people may not be as sensitive to immigrants,” Antonovich said in the deposition. “ . . . I have a sensitivity because of my own background.” Antonovich’s grandparents were Croatian immigrants who arrived in the United States with little means.

“I thought nothing of (making) a character reference because you write letters all the time for people,” he said.

Younger gave a similar account of the phone call in a deposition. He said that Antonovich told him, “ ‘I hope this isn’t improper,’ or words to that effect. . . . To which I kiddingly responded, ‘Well, if you say something improper, I’ll hang up on you.’ ”

The judge recalled in his deposition that Antonovich said, “I just wanted to tell you that certain of the people in that case . . . are good people.

“My response,” Younger said in the deposition, “was something to the effect of ‘Yes . . . I’ve met some of the litigants on both sides of that case, and they all seem like good folks. . . .’ He further talked about the same individual that he had previously talked about, stressing that they were up the hard way. . . .”

“I rather promptly changed the subject,” the judge said in his deposition.

Younger said the conversation lasted “maybe 30 to 40 seconds, maximum.”

In January, 1989, Younger called attorneys for both sides in the case into his chambers and advised them of the phone call.

“I was uncomfortable about the call, either having an impact or an appearance of an impact,” the judge said in his deposition.

Younger said in his deposition that he later visited Antonovich’s Hall of Administration office to inform the supervisor that he was disqualifying himself from hearing the case.

Younger said Antonovich told him that he was asked for character references all the time and “he hadn’t thought there was anything unusual about this request and that he certainly hadn’t any idea that there was anything improper about it.”

The judge recalled that the supervisor said the plaintiff in pressing the matter was “greatly exaggerating its importance.”